page_title: Grigory Sarkisovich Grigoryants
section_title: The war years
hierarchical_section_title: Grigory Sarkisovich Grigoryants / The war years
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a picture that I, Gloria Gaddar, took of Grigory Grigoryants and his evac crew.
context_page_description: Grigory Sarkisovich Grigoryants was a Soviet surgeon, an innovator and State recognized Doctor Emeritus of the Uzbek SSR He is best known for revolutionizing and developing medical surgical services in the Namangan Region.
context_section_description: On January 5, 1942, during the difficult times of World War II, Grigory started his job as the head of the Regional Health Department of Turakurgan (one of the Districts of Uzbekistan located within the Namangan Province). Grigory, who held one of the top positions in his field, humbly took a daily route through the railroad tracks – that connected the train stations of the Namangan and Turakurgan cities – on foot.
  One year later, in February 1943, his governing duties expended as he became the head of the Namangan Province's Central Health Department. At the same time, Grigoryants also served as the Medical Superintendent and Head Physician of  the regional evacuation hospital #4567, one of the 113 war hospitals set up in the Uzbek Republic during World War II. At that time, Uzbekistan, as other Central Asian Soviet Republics, served as the U.S.S.R's Rear (military) base.
  Grigoryants's evac. hospital was housed on site of Namangan's school #34, near the train station from where the wounded Soviet soldiers and other military personnel (transported straight from the battle fields) were rushed to the evacuation hospital facilities. Working around the clock, Grigoryants's medical team – which was experiencing shortage in qualified medical specialists, as well as in medical materials' supply – had to economize by reusing the thoroughly washed gauze bandages on numerous patients.
  Shortage of surgeons in the Namangan Province during the war led Grigoryants to his calling. 
  In 1942, literally in clinical emergency settings, Grigoryants started his surgical training under the mentorship of Xenia Sergeevna Kisselyova, a prominent surgeon from Moscow, who was stationed in Namangan as the result of the Great Soviet World War II Mobilization and Evacuation to Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Dr. Kisselyova later remembered that when she first saw a young tall doctor, she took notice of his hands. "He (Grigoryants) had surgeon's hands. Being in charge, he was doing everything at the hospital, from medical to administrative services. I told him to start operating." From that moment, Grigoryants's fate was sealed. Surgeon Grigoryants and Surgeon Kisselyova, the latter returned to Moscow after the war, had developed and maintained a strong professional bond and a lifelong friendship.
  For his outstanding work as a doctor during the war time, Grigoryants was awarded an official Governmental Gratitude Letter and the Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945".
  In 1944 Grigoryants was appointed director of Namangan's Feldsher-Obstetrician School Of Medicine (eventually the school was developed into an accredited Medical College). One of his best students in school recollected that Grigoryants's pupils, especially ladies, "greatly adored young Grigoryants", the man who always managed to look at any situation with a sharp sense of humor.
  Grigoryants's duties at school already coincided with his job as a surgeon in Namangan's municipal hospital.
caption: Young G. S. Grigoryants (seated center right) with the Namangan Evac. Hospital's #4567 staff, c. 1942
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